Budapest Festival Orchestra . Iván Fischer

Good wine requires no praise, but with his grand cru Budapest Festival Orchestra Iván Fischer has garnered abundant praise. Their Bartók/Stravinsky programme is undoubtedly still echoing in your ears. They are back, not with Dvorák's overplayed 'New World', but with something that is musically even more interesting - the Seventh Symphony. This symphony, together with his Cello Concerto, is quite simply one of the finest symphonic pieces. Along with his famous Piano Sonata KV331, Mozart's Fifth Violin Concerto also includes an alla Turca section. Oddly, given its title, there is not actually anything very Turkish about this music. If anything, you get the distinct impression that the theme is based on a Hungarian folk tune. But Iván Fischer undoubtedly knows how to handle this. The soloist in the concerto is the American star violinist Hilary Hahn, who was known for a long time as a child prodigy. But she no longer carries the stamp of the 'Wunderkind' and has meanwhile established herself as a violinist credited as being amongst the best of her time.